STM recipe: Melanie Lionello’s winter cake with seasonal apple, orange and fennel

This unique recipe hails from Veneto and features iconic Venetian ingredients, such as grappa, sultanas (golden raisins), polenta, milk, butter and fennel. It seems like an unusual combination, but it really works. The cake is more like a sweet polenta pudding that’s then baked, resulting in a dense, firm slab cake with an almost pudding-like texture in the middle. I love this for breakfast during winter just as much as a dessert. If you don’t have dried figs, feel free to omit and just double the sultanas.

Ingredients

80ml (⅓ cup) grappa

90g (¾ cup) sultanas

6 dried figs, cut into small sultana-size pieces

1 tsp fennel seeds (whole)

1 green apple, peeled, cored and grated

zest of 1 orange

50g (⅓ cup) pine nuts

800ml full-cream milk

200g (1 ⅓ cups) polenta (see Note)

70g plain flour

120g caster sugar

80g butter, cut into cubes

7g baking powder

icing sugar, to serve

Preparation

Step 1 To start, prepare your dried fruit as far in advance as you can, whether it’s 30 minutes or the night before. Place the grappa, sultanas, dried figs, fennel seeds, grated apple, orange zest and pine nuts in a small bowl to marinate for at least 30 minutes. Set aside.

Step 2 Preheat the oven to 180C fan-forced.

Step 3 Line a cake pan (about 20cm for square, or 23cm for round or rectangular) with baking paper, making sure there is a little to hold on to for lifting the cake out later. Set aside.

Step 4 Place the milk in a large saucepan over medium heat. Heat until just before boiling — the top of the milk will be frothy — then add the polenta. Cook for 5-7 minutes, stirring, until the mixture has thickened to resemble cake batter. Remove from the heat.

Step 5 Add the flour, caster sugar, butter, baking powder and the soaked fruit and grappa mixture and mix to combine well. Pour the batter into the lined cake tin and bake for 55 minutes until golden on top.

Step 6 Let the cake cool in the tin for 10 minutes, before carefully lifting the cake out of the tin onto a wire rack using the baking paper. Cool the cake to room temperature, then dust with icing sugar and enjoy. Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or freeze in slices for up to 3 months.

NOTE: I use fine polenta for this recipe. If you use coarse, cook for an extra 10 minutes

Serves 8-10

Extracted from Easy Italian Dinners From My Little Kitchen by Melanie Lionello, photography by Mark Roper. Murdoch Books $39.99